I love this Soviet-era poster that Glen found in St. Petersburg during our trip there last semester. We have it hanging up in the teachers office. It encourages the Good Soviet Citizen to fight with the hooligans (i.e. the "enemies of the state" and so on). Considering that nearly all the 4:00pm classes are chock full of hooligans, this is a good poster to boost teacher morale. Oddly enough, my hooligan-hour class is deathly silent. I mean, in nearly all classes, the students chat with one another during the 10 minutes before class, but not these guys. They all sit there, staring at their notebooks in utter silence. All the way through class, getting participation is like pulling teeth. I think these kids are simply very shy. Surely, they would talk to one another in Russian otherwise! My hooligani class from last semester was quiet as death for about the first two classes, then suddenly hooliganism erupted. Poor G (who was the only teacher last semester without genuine hooligani) now has my hooligans from last semester, and I think it's a bit of a shock for him. Every Tuesday and Friday, after my non-hooligans quietly slink out of the classroom, G's hooligans come running up to me shouting "Hello Annie!" and having short conversations with me. (I donated a copy of Prisoner of Wonderland to the AH library, and one of my former hooligans - who, to her credit, was the smartest and best behaved student in the class - checked it out today! How cool is that?) Anyway, while I don't really miss having to shout over the hooligan-din, I wish my 4:00 class would say something. Hell, even answering me in Russian would be an improvement. Any suggestions?
Friday, February 10, 2006
Fight with the Hooligans!!
I love this Soviet-era poster that Glen found in St. Petersburg during our trip there last semester. We have it hanging up in the teachers office. It encourages the Good Soviet Citizen to fight with the hooligans (i.e. the "enemies of the state" and so on). Considering that nearly all the 4:00pm classes are chock full of hooligans, this is a good poster to boost teacher morale. Oddly enough, my hooligan-hour class is deathly silent. I mean, in nearly all classes, the students chat with one another during the 10 minutes before class, but not these guys. They all sit there, staring at their notebooks in utter silence. All the way through class, getting participation is like pulling teeth. I think these kids are simply very shy. Surely, they would talk to one another in Russian otherwise! My hooligani class from last semester was quiet as death for about the first two classes, then suddenly hooliganism erupted. Poor G (who was the only teacher last semester without genuine hooligani) now has my hooligans from last semester, and I think it's a bit of a shock for him. Every Tuesday and Friday, after my non-hooligans quietly slink out of the classroom, G's hooligans come running up to me shouting "Hello Annie!" and having short conversations with me. (I donated a copy of Prisoner of Wonderland to the AH library, and one of my former hooligans - who, to her credit, was the smartest and best behaved student in the class - checked it out today! How cool is that?) Anyway, while I don't really miss having to shout over the hooligan-din, I wish my 4:00 class would say something. Hell, even answering me in Russian would be an improvement. Any suggestions?
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3 comments:
Have you tried speakig Russian to them to break the ice?
One activity that always seemed to loosen my kids up and get them talking was to coordinate a game of charades using recent vocabulary. At first they would be shy and need encouragement, but it helped to act out the first couple of things as a teacher, just because they seemed to respond in a way that suggests they thought, 'Well, the teacher has already made a fool out of herself. Why not?' I also told them that *everyone* had to participate, so that put them at more ease as well. The teams would get caught up in trying to outdo each other, too, which refocused the attention on winning and not having to embarass the hell out of yourself. I ended up using the game more than I thought I would, since it did provide a postive, engaged response.
-Brooke
mom - yep... no go. i ask them a simple question in english; no answer. then i ask them in russian; no answer. it's like a graveyard in there.
brooke - thanks for the suggestion; i'll try it in there next time and see what they do. it should be interesting...
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